More Kupka at Kampa Museum

The Kampa Museum's already rich collection of artworks by Frantisek Kupka, a seminal Czech abstract painter who spent most of his life in France, will soon be even richer, as the museum has purchased the collection of American art historian Lilli Lonngren Anders.

"In total, it is 41 works of art, including an interesting oil painting, Portrait of Kupka's Step-daughter AndrEe (1906), which foreshadows his later abstract period," says Jii Machalicky, curator of the Kampa Museum.

The museum foundation paid half a million U.S. dollars for the collection, which many consider a very good price for the oil paintings, drawings, studies and documents.

Should a competition for the most influential painter of the 20th-century avant-garde ever be held, only a few names would be considered, including Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Wassily Kandinsky, all of whom are today some of the most expensive artists on the market.

Though he may not be as internationally recognized as those names, Kupka commands high prices around the world. For instance, in March 2009, Kupka's painting Zhrouceni vertikal (Breakdown of Verticals) from 1935 was sold for nearly 26 million Kc.

"This past summer, Kupka's painting Movement from the Hascoe Collection sold for 43 million Kc, but this painting didn't go to the Czech Republic; the buyer was foreign," says Jan Skivanek, editor-in-chief of Art & Antiques magazine.

"The thing with Kupka is there are only a few oil paintings on the market, and he is not frequently a part of auctions. Kupka's paintings appear rarely. This fact undermines the price rise. This is not the case of, say, Picasso, whose paintings are not rare on the market," Skivanek adds.

Kupka's paintings can easily find buyers on the market, but studies and graphics are a harder sell, as there have been cases of counterfeit pieces in the past, and buyers are now generally cautious.

The authenticity of the collection purchased by the Kampa Museum, however, is not up for dispute. Lonngren Anders met the elderly Czech painter before his death in 1957 as she "was a young art historian sent to Paris by former Museum of Modern Art Director Alfred Barr Jr., who considered Kupka the first abstract painter and wanted to find out what was his basis, starting points, how he got to the abstraction," Machalicky says.

Included in the collection are also some documents and original catalogs of Kupka's exhibitions, some with Kupka's own notes about prices, which are perfect material for further studies. Though the collection contains mainly works on paper and small studies, which are not even watercolors but simply drawings that would be not as easy to sell as large paintings, for a museum it is perfect material.

"It is a superb collection, and one of the reasons Lonngren Anders sold it for such a good price was she wanted to keep the collection together and also pass it on to some museum where Kupka is the main star," Skivanek says.  

Kupka was born in 1871 in Opocno, east Bohemia, and first studied to be a saddler. The young man soon established a small painting workshop and then went on to study painting at the Prague Art Academy in 1886. Later, he studied in Vienna, and then he moved to Paris to attend the famous Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1905, he moved to Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, where he died in 1957.

The Kampa Museum opened in September 2001, and since then has become an important part of the Prague art scene. The museum shows the Central European art collection that Jan and Meda Mladek amassed in their American exile, together with the collection of Jii and Běla Kola and works by Jindich Chalupecky as well as temporary exhibitions. Also in the permanent collection are a large number of works by Otto Gutfreund and, of course, Frantisek Kupka.

Registration Now Open For Winter 2012 Classes At Arts Guild NJ

Registration is now open for winter classes for adults, teens , and children at Arts Guild New Jersey . Winter classes begin the week of Jan. 14, including several new options, in addition to many familiar classes. Whether students are challenging themselves by taking their skills to the next level, or trying a new technique for the first time, there is something for people of all skill levels at Arts Guild New Jersey.

In addition to new classes, the Arts Guild will be utilizing a newly renovated studio classroom space on the corner of Esterbrook and Milton avenues in Rahway.

For complete course descriptions and class schedules, access the online course catalog  request a printed flyer. You will notice class locations specified next to each class description: either 1670 Irving for the traditional Arts Guild building on Irving Street, or 125 W. Milton, for the brand new Annex space on Milton Avenue.

Registration is accepted online, as well as in-person or by mail. To register in person, visit the office at 1670 Irving Street in Rahway, on Monday, Tuesday or Thursday, from 9 a.m. – noon or from 1 – 4 p.m. (use parking lot entrance). Cash and check payments are accepted in person or by mail; credit card payments are accepted online only.

Daytime adult classes include Drawing from Life & Photos, an introduction to the fundamentals of composition, perspective, proportion, positive/negative space, value, and texture, using still life and reference materials; Expressive Watercolor, in which students create vibrant paintings in their own personal style; and Oil Painting: Basics & Beyond, where students focus on composition/design, under-painting, color theory and color mixing, and using transparent glazes. Daytime adult classes run weekly for two and a half hours each morning (10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.), for eight weeks. All levels welcomed.

Two choices for adult drawing classes are offered in the evening: Drawing the Human Figure, a class for artists who want to improve observational drawing skills and understand the basic anatomy and proportions of the human figure by working from a live model, and Open Studio Life Drawing, sessions in which artists work, without an instructor, from different live male and female models each week, in short and long poses.

The Arts Guild offers evening adult painting classes in various mediums. Watercolor teaches students to create vivid, original works of art with an emphasis on color, blending, composition, precision, form, light, shade and the use of brushes. Acrylic Painting demonstrates traditional methods, from washes and glazing with acrylic medium, to the use of gels and additives for texture. Painting with Oils is a study of technical, formal, and creative aspects of painting original artworks with oils from still life displays, landscape, and other inspirational sources.

Beginning Stained Glass and Intermediate/Advanced Stained Glass emphasize the skills of glass-cutting, foil wrapping, soldering and finishing techniques to make lampshades, stained glass window panels or even stained glass sculptural pieces and holiday ornaments, in two separate classes designed for your skill level.

The Arts Guild will also be offering two exciting new adult classes in the evening: 3-D Design and 2-D Design Fundamentals. 3-D Design examines the relationship between objects and the space in which they exist, through the construction of three-dimensional projects employing a variety of media. In 2-D Design students will broaden their understanding of visual organization, from concepts like form and color to more complex issues of perception, abstraction, and pattern.

For adult classes, students are responsible for their own materials. Supply lists are distributed upon registration. Most evening classes run for 2.5 hours weekly, for eight weeks.

Teen classes at Arts Guild New Jersey include Drawing, with a curriculum designed to build skills in drawing still life objects, landscapes, and basic figure drawing, and Sculpture/3-D Art, where students use wood, cardboard and found materials to create sculpture while learning about design and composition of forms in space. On Saturdays students can choose Painting for Teens, which covers everything from composition to color mixing, working from various subjects using acrylic paint, or Japanese Anime/Manga Style Cartooning, where students learn the techniques of this popular cartooning and animation style to make their own comic art. All teen classes include materials.

Kids classes include Sculpture for Kids, where students build three-dimensional objects out of cardboard, paper maché, wire, modeling clay and other materials and the popular Drawing Exploration, which builds students’ skills in drawing realistic and imaginary objects, people and landscapes, while tapping into their creativity and imagination. These children’s classes run weekly during after school hours The Arts Guild now also offers a Saturday class for kids: Cartooning, where students tell a simple story in pictures, creating a comic panel or comic strip page. Materials for all children’s classes are provided.

The Arts Guild will offer three in-depth one-day adult workshops this Winter on Saturdays. Encaustic Painting will be held on Feb. 25, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and will include collage, stenciling, painting, and a variety of other uses for this wax medium to create several original pieces. Quick, gestural, and full of vibrant energy, Alla Prima Painting Technique captures the essence of the subject matter with just a few well-placed strokes. Students will learn to paint with ‘bravura’ during this workshop on March 3, 2012, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Intended for students with some life drawing experience, Dynamic Figure Drawing and Anatomy will push student’s drawing abilities to the next level by learning to capture the essence of the model’s gesture on paper. Some anatomy will also be addressed during this workshop on March 10, 2012, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Love of art can be shared at last

In a brightly lit room next to the great room at the spacious Meadows of Dorchester long-term care home in Niagara Falls last Friday afternoon, dozens of eye catching landscape paintings were there for all the world to view — and purchase, should they desire them.

A great many of the lovely oil paintings featured lakes, rivers, streams, waves and waterfalls. They were all the handiwork of Udo Kupper, at age 89 a man as spry as they come.

That the paintings were there are all was thanks to serendipity.

Kupper could well have spent his life under the heel of communism, when the Soviet Union invaded his native Estonia in the last 1940s. That country remained in the iron fist of its invaders for nearly half a century, until the Iron Curtain finally fell in the 1990s.

Lucky for Kupper, he was able to escape — barely. Along with a few others, he hopped into a wobbly little rowboat towed by another boat, heading across the stormy Baltic Sea to refuge in Sweden.

The harrowing journey saw the rope break, and Kupper bailing out water as it splashed into the rickety craft. Even that close call wasn’t enough to dampen his love of water featured in his many paintings.

Once in the safety of Sweden, he met a young lady named Grace who’d also fled Estonia. The two married and are still together 64 years later.

They eventually made their way to Welland, where Udo launched a business hand painting large advertising billboards. But his love for art stretched into his spare time: for about half a century, he toiled away making his beloved oil paintings. And for half a century, most of them collected in his basement.

When the administrator of the Meadows home caught wind of his collection which had never been seen by the public, she arranged for the octogenarian to have his first-even solo exhibit. Within hours of the two-day exhibit, he’d already sold some of his paintings to admirers.

Colleen Tufts, the administrator, beamed as Kupper basked in the spotlight.

Thanks to a daring escape and the sharp eye of one woman, Kupper’s love of painting is something he can finally share with the world. No doubt, some of those paintings he sold — many done from memories of being a boy in Estonia — will be treasured by people in their new-found homes in living rooms in Niagara.

Andy Warhol in 'Headlines' at Washington's National Gallery

Andy Warhol, the guru of Pop art, reveled in a lifelong obsession with newspapers, especially tabloids and their garish headlines. As a teenager, he saved pages with photos of his favorite Hollywood stars. Throughout his life he packed hundreds of newspapers into boxes he called "time capsules" to whet the fancy of the future. He collected scores of fraying clippings about himself in 34 scrapbooks. But most important, he used newspapers, especially the front pages, to model and inform some of the most important works of his fine art. It is hard to imagine Warhol the artist without his headlines.

Warhol's news junkie obsession and its importance to his art are detailed with great care in a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington titled simply "Warhol: Headlines." The show, which closes Jan. 2, goes on to the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt in February, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome in June and the Andy Warhol Museum in his hometown of Pittsburgh in October 2012.

Unlike a retrospective of all the work of Warhol, the exhibition attempts to concentrate on a single aspect of the artist that, in fact, reveals a good deal about him. Curator Molly Donovan of the National Gallery says, "the theme enabled me to tell a tight and focused story ... that had not been understood before." Donovan dates Warhol's emergence as a fine artist to a series of newspaper canvases that he created in the early 1960s. Until then, he had devoted himself to advertising design (including a lucrative campaign for I. Miller shoes) and magazine illustration.

In one 1962 canvas, "A Boy for Meg (2)," which belongs to the National Gallery, Warhol, using oil and egg emulsion, re-created the front page of the New York Post announcing a baby boy born to Princess Margaret of England. Margaret was a household name. Only a few years earlier she had given in to pressure from the British royal family and, while the world awaited her decision, finally agreed not to marry the divorced man she loved. She later wed a never-married suitor instead, and the New York Post was celebrating the birth of their first child. Both the tabloid and Warhol shared an excitement over celebrity.

Warhol's rendition was not a simple reproduction. He inflated the front page on to a canvas 6 feet high and, while he attempted to include every detail, his pictures looked more like drawings than photographs. Warhol was often obscure while explaining his work. John Russell, a New York Times art critic, once wrote that "Warhol operates behind a mask of inarticulacy." Yet Warhol seemed clear about mocking the notion that he served as no more than a mirror reproducing his subject matter. "I'm going to look into the mirror and see nothing," he once said. "People are always calling me a mirror, and if a mirror looks into a mirror, what is there to see?"

In another 6-foot-high canvas completed in 1962, "Daily News," Warhol used acrylic and pencil to mimic the front and back pages of the New York tabloid. This work celebrated Elizabeth Taylor's rejection of her husband, singer Eddie Fisher, for actor Richard Burton. "Eddie Fisher Breaks Down/ In Hospital Here; Liz in Rome," the main headlines bellowed. Warhol removed all the captions from the photos, leaving details to the imagination of the viewers.

The 34-year-old Warhol was little known when he exhibited these works, and the idea of Pop art — the use of the icons of popular culture as subject matter for fine art — was little understood. His work was not well received at first. Dore Ashton, an influential critic, wrote that "Warhol simply lifts the techniques of journalism and applies them witlessly to a flat surface." But that view changed. It was soon recognized, as Donovan puts it, that Warhol had elevated his hoarded headlines "to the status of art" and had transformed his material "into something both grand and personal."

Warhol attracted more favorable notice with other subjects from this period like his paintings of Coca-Cola bottles and Campbell soup cans and his many colored silk screens of Marilyn Monroe. These spectacular works won him great success. His followers started calling him "the Pope of Pop" and "Papa Pop."

Warhol never abandoned headlines as a subject — even when he sensed that the tabloids were losing their impact. A few years after he emerged as a celebrated Pop artist, he saw the demise of one of his favorite tabloids — the Hearst Corp.'s New York Mirror. He also believed that television was replacing the tabloids as the source of lurid, gossipy "headlines" about celebrities and disasters. To keep up with this trend, Warhol and his followers began experimenting with the creation of television programs.

The artist was an avid photographer, and he enjoyed aiming his camera at tabloid vending machines with visible front-page headlines. "Drug Link to Amtrak Crash," cried one New York Post headline while another said, "$1.3m Picasso Disappears Again On L.I." While in London, he photographed the news vendor announcements that summarized the tabloid headlines. "London Strangler 'Kills Again,'" said one.

Warhol's New York studio, known as the Silver Factory or the Factory, was a collegial enterprise with many hangers-on The scene, according to Donovan, "had become its own hot commodity, selling cool stylishness." She describes it in the exhibition catalog as "a space where transvestites, heiresses, speed freaks, wealthy art collectors, rock musicians and Harvard graduates alike mixed together." The antics of the studio added to the celebrity of Warhol. "Don't pay any attention to what they write about you," he once said about media coverage. "Just measure it in inches."

The Factory was also the scene of the near killing of Warhol. In June 1968, Valerie Solanas, a feminist writer and hanger-on angered by the Factory's refusal to accept her manuscript for one of its publications, shot Warhol in the chest. Doctors managed to save Warhol's life only by massaging his heart. By now, Warhol had become enough of a celebrity to make the front page of his beloved tabloids. "Andy Warhol Fights for Life," the New York Post proclaimed, running front-page photos of Warhol and his assassin. The New York Daily News said, "Actress Shoots Andy Warhol."

In his later years, Warhol collaborated on newspaper projects with two young New York graffiti artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Both had distinguished but abbreviated careers, Basquiat dying at age 27 and Haring at age 31.

In a 1984 Basquiat collaboration, Warhol set down a headline from the New York Post: "Ailing Ali In Fight of Life." That headline, reminiscent of Warhol's own headline in the Post, described boxer Muhammad Ali's early symptoms of brain damage. In graffiti fashion, Basquiat painted around Warhol's letters with advertising logos and animals that obscured the original headline.

In a 1985 collaboration with Haring, Warhol used another New York Post front page as their model. Its main headline reported, "Madonna: 'I'm Not Ashamed'/Rock star shrugs off nudie pix furor." The artists produced a series of garish versions of the front page, some in glow paint, almost all covered with the favorite graffiti figures of Haring. No viewer could mistake these canvases as a reproduction of the original front page.

In 1987, when he was 58, Warhol died of complications from gall bladder surgery. The tabloids did not forget him. The front page of the New York Post ran a photo of Warhol standing in front of a silkscreen of Marilyn Monroe. It announced in large, somber type: "Andy Warhol Dead at 58." The subhead described him as the "Prince of pop art who turned a soup can into museum treasure." Stories about the "Life & Times of a Media Genius" were promised on three inside pages.

A far different Warhol can be encountered across the national mall at the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum. Curators there are displaying Shadows, a monumental Warhol work that extends 450 feet along the museum's curving walls. Completed in 1979, Shadows, which will be on exhibition in Washington until mid-January, is a complete break from pop art.

Warhol may have been mimicking and perhaps making fun of abstract art. The work comprises 102 colorful panels, each one a painting and silk screen of a similar right-angled figure that Warhol claimed was "based on a photo of a shadow in my office." Warhol, evoking an image like that of abstract expressionist Jackson Pollack dripping paint, also claimed that he mopped acrylic paint on to each canvas before it was silk screened. Hirshhorn curator Evelyn Hankins points out, however, that much of the paint is too carefully applied to fit the chaotic strokes of a mop.

All 102 panels have never before been displayed together. The Dia Art Foundation, which owns the work, usually shows 72. Perhaps because each panel is slightly different and Warhol and his assistants used some of his favorite colors like carmine and chartreuse and peach, the repetitive effect is far from boring — but mesmerizing instead, much like an impressionist film.

Artists-In-Residence Share Their Talents

Beyond the bucolic surroundings and past the portico has been hiding a well-kept artistic surprise that, thanks to Dick Meehan, has now been revealed.

Meehan, 81, a five-year resident of The Evergreens on Bridgeboro Road, has unveiled a  booklet entitled, “Focus on the Arts at The Evergreens,” which chronicles the striking and stunning works in 350 photographs of artists-in-residence of the facility. The collection is the upshot of fieldwork Meehan arranged, after recognizing that many of the folks living at The Evergreens were accomplished artists.

What reverberates while viewing the many collected works is the awe-inspiring knowledge that most of the artists were born in the days when gas cost 10 cents. The 37 artists, most between ages 80 and 100, detail their long-lived lives and their artistic aptitudes in biographies.

When he began the retrospective, Meehan, a retired partner from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, discovered most of the residents began their hobbies after retirement.

“Many attended formal classes in their chosen hobby earning college degrees,” says Meehan, who is married to Marianne and the father of three sons. He is also a member of the board of trustees and a resident ambassador of The Evergreens. “Most of the artists found their activity to be relaxing and therapeutic.”

Chuck Perry, 94, graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta with an electrical engineering degree. He worked for the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in Camden until entering the army during the Second World War, spending five years in Europe with the allied forces. After leaving the army, he moved to California, where he worked as a vice president of guided missiles for Boeing Aircraft.

Needing another outlet and “tired of the politics” of corporations, Perry retired at age 61 and went back to college.

“After I retired, I studied art at California State University because I always liked to work with my hands,” says the twice-married Perry, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa, with two degrees in the fine arts: painting and sculpture.

Many of Perry’s paintings are vivid portraitures of coy women with mysterious expressions of wonder. His sculptures are intensely defined human busts; the one of himself is an uncanny resemblance. Most of his works were done up until five years ago, when he had to discontinue his hobby because of stiff legs.

“A good artist needs to step back sometimes and look at their work,” says Perry, who has lived at The Evergreens for 16 years. “I can’t do that anymore.”

After graduating from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan with a fine arts and fashion degree, Giovanna Wenderhorst set up window displays for H.E. Brown and Company, which had upscale stores in Garden City, N.Y. Wenderhorst, an octogenarian, started the chicken-wire sculpture props, used as backdrops with fashionably-dressed mannequins.

While raising her two kids, Wenderhorst did drawings and sketches for the Sunday New York Times and Newsday, but it’s her action-oriented paintings of ballet dancers that are most dramatic and dazzling.

Allergic to the linseed oil, a common particle of oil paint, Wenderhorst works with watercolors.

“I have to feel what I paint,” explains Wenderhorst.

Years before, she would assume the awkward positions of the ballerinas so she could play up on canvas the graphic shapes of the dancers. Among her other unique works is her painting series on the four natural elements—air, fire, water and earth—which have faces obscurely drawn within each composition.

“I find myself moving into different expressions during different periods of my life,” says Wenderhorst, a widow, who moved to Moorestown in 1994.

Centenarian Stuart Younkin began woodworking by assembling furniture after duplicating reproductions from Bartley Classic Reproductions catalogs.

“He still works in the woodworking room every morning,” says Meehan.

The spirited fellow has crafted more than 50 jewelry boxes, candle stands and tilt-top tables, using mahogany, cherry, maple and Spanish cedar woods.

“Focus on the Arts at The Evergreens” isn’t Meehan’s first book. A Korean War veteran, in 2007 Meehan learned there were 67 other veterans in-residence at The Evergreens and authored the booklet, “Veterans Briefs,” summarizing the veterans’ emotions and experiences that come with serving in the military.

Top 10 Oil Paintings for the Summer Revealed

In the heat of summer, one might be enjoying the beach, the poolside parties, and the summer cocktails infused with exotic fruits. Has anyone thought for a moment to consider a change in their interior design? Perhaps an update to the walls in the home can brighten one’s day. Cheapoilpainting.com provides affordable art reproductions to everyone.

VP of Marketing at Cheapoilpainting.com, Olivia Preston, said, “We have thousands of oil paintings that can complement any season: Winter, Fall, Spring, and Summer. Since it is now summer we’ve noticed an increase in order on summer themed paintings. We’ve also noticed a general trend of more and more people buying according to the seasons – perhaps they are looking to harmonize the interior of their homes and offices with their external environment”.

With that in mind, Cheapoilpainting.com has put together a list of their top 10 favorite paintings for the summer.

1.    Paul Gauguin, Tahitian Landscape (circa 1893). Almost everyone knows the story behind Gauguin, and the mystique and allure of the summer paradise only adds to the oil painting’s standing. After all, who doesn’t have the summer fantasy of escaping a dreary existence and lazing on an island paradise? This oil painting is perfect for the beach house – or for eliciting getaway fantasies in your suburban office.
2.    Claude Monet, The Poppy Field (1873). This painting is one of a series hailed as the best Monet paintings, recreating the French summer to such sweltering effects that the poppies seemingly shimmer on the canvas – watch out, it could be hot to touch.
3.    Winslow Homer, A Summer Night (1890). Many critics consider this oil painting to be the perfect synthesis of Realism and Symbolism – an exquisite piece conveying the sense of summer mystery and poetry.
4.    Alfred Sisley, The Loing at Moret in Summer (1891). This Impressionist landscape classic features clear blue skies and the brilliant reflections of light on a slowly meandering river – you can almost feel the summer love in the air. A perfect addition to the vacation home by the river.
5.    David Hockney, A Bigger Splash (1967). This painting represents a break in the old and the ushering of the modern, at least in terms of houses and swimming pools. With pool parties steadily increasing in popularity, everyone knows the impact of that splash. No artist has captured that pivotal moment more astutely than this Hockney oil painting.
6.    Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin, Basket With Wild Strawberries (1761). Anyone who has ever picked their own wild strawberries knows the heavenly reward for the hard work; added to the heap of strawberries is a smooth round peach and traffic-light bright cherries. A glass of water cools off the summer intensity. An ideal still life for that sweltering day.
7.    Isaac Levitan, Summer Evening (1899). The Russian artist beautifully captures the rural mood of a parched and sparse country landscape. The heat, combined with the loneliness, perfectly portrays the summer-soaked evening light in the country. It’s no wonder he was a favorite artist and close friend of Chekhov.
8.    Bridget Riley, To a Summer’s Day (1980). What makes this painting so special is its simplicity – summer hues are interweaved across the horizontal canvas, simultaneously creating impressions of the sky, ground, ocean or whatever landscape your mind’s eye develops. Perfect for any location to recreate the mirage and ripples of high summer temperatures.
9.    Fred Williams, Beachscape with bathers Queenscliff IV (1971). This oil painting is a clear indication of why many consider him Australia’s greatest modern painter, and why beaches will forever be treasured as an integral part of summer. Williams captures the beachscape effortlessly and with precision, reminding everyone of summers spent frolicking in the sand and surf.
10.    Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-81). This oil painting remains one of Renoir’s best known and most popular work of art. Why? It flawlessly captures the idyllic and jovial summer atmosphere as friends share conversation, food and wine on a balcony overlooking the Seine. It summarizes the most important thing about the season: spending time with loved ones and enjoying the simple things in life.

Who is Cheapoilpainting.com?
Cheapoilpainting.com offers museum-quality oil painting reproductions at a price everyone can afford. They also offer hand painted picture to painting services. With up to 70% off gallery prices, the company has a 30-day, 100% money back guarantee, along with an extensive 100% satisfaction guarantee. High resolution photos are sent to customers for approval before shipping any painting and shipping of paintings is free of charge. Browse Cheapoilpainting.com to view its extensive collection of oil paintings and for special offers.